From humble beginnings as a guitar maker to becoming a world-class leader in amplifying acoustic instruments, LR Baggs has spent decades helping musicians sound better onstage. With contact mics, soundhole pickups, and award-winning microphone systems, they have constantly led the charge to get natural sounds from all types of acoustic instruments. No matter what kind of acoustic guitar you play, Sweetwater has an LR Baggs system that will give you the sound you want when you plug in.
Internal Microphones
Capture your guitar’s true acoustic sound
There’s nothing like using a quality condenser mic to capture the sound of your favorite acoustic guitar. But in most cases, using a sensitive studio mic in a live situation is a recipe for instant feedback. And while piezo pickups offer high gain before feedback, they seldom sound fantastic. The LR Baggs Lyric pressure-zone acoustic guitar microphone strikes a balance between the fidelity of high-end studio microphones and the indispensable feedback resistance of piezo pickups. By placing the featherweight pressure-zone microphone element less than 3mm from the top of your guitar, the Lyric system effectively uses the most resonant part of your instrument as its diaphragm. The next step in LR Baggs’s Tru Mic technology, the Lyric introduced several new patented technologies. Among those is a unique noise-cancellation system which eliminates the boxiness associated with under-saddle acoustic guitar mics while conveying the sweet highs and powerful low end you’d expect from an external microphone. Whether you’re recording in the studio or playing out live, you’re going to be impressed by the sound quality you get from your LR Baggs Lyric microphone.
Lyric Microphone Features:
- High-fidelity microphone for amazing sound
- Soundhole volume and presence control
- Microphone mounts easily to the underside of your bridge plate
- Tru Mic noise-canceling technology delivers optimized tone
- Tight low end and sweet overall tone
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lyric | Microphone | 200 hours, single 9V |
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| Lyric Classical | Microphone | 200 hours, single 9V |
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Hybrid Mic and Pickup System
Capture the big, full-range tone of your guitar
The LR Baggs Anthem family of pickups combine the Tru Mic condenser microphone and the Element under-saddle pickup together to deliver a full-range, high-fidelity sound. It doesn’t use fancy modeling or tone shaping — the Anthem system is simply an expertly designed microphone/under-saddle pickup combination that gets to the root of your guitar’s natural and beautiful tone. Even its noise-canceling technology won’t touch your sound, letting the clear and clean notes ring while keeping annoying feedback at bay. The Anthem pickup system has a robust soundhole remote that gives you control over the mix, volume, phase, and mic level controls. The slimmed-down Anthem SL soundhole remote offers volume and mic level controls.
Anthem Hybrid Pickup System Features:
- Hybrid microphone and piezo pickup system optimized for guitar
- Feedback-resistant with even, string-to-string balance
- Tru Mic noise-canceling technology avoids “boxy” tone
- Discrete Class A preamp with preset crossover
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthem | Mic + under-saddle Pickup | 170 hours, single 9V |
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| Anthem SL | Mic + under-saddle Pickup | 170 hours, single 9V |
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| Anthem SL-C | Mic + under-saddle Pickup | 170 hours, single 9V |
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Soundhole Pickup
Get natural acoustic guitar sound onstage
LR Baggs’s soundhole pickups bring the natural voice of your guitar to life onstage. They not only pick up your string sound but also the vibrations of your guitar’s top. These signals are then blended to give you a complete sonic image of your instrument. Your strings will sound sweet but not too twangy and bright (a problem with many acoustic soundhole pickups). And you’ll have full control of your detailed, full sound thanks to a built-in volume control. A pre-wired strapjack harness makes installation a breeze. Best of all, you can feel free to plug in and play all you want. The LR Baggs soundhole pickup’s battery will last for 1,000+ hours — that’s more than a month of 24/7 playing!
Soundhole Pickup Features:
- Body sensor captures the sound of your guitar’s body
- Quiet, hum-free operation for your stage performances
- Reproduces the richness and complexity of your guitar’s sound
- Extremely resistant to feedback
- Built-in volume control
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| M80 | Soundhole/magnetic | 1000+ hours, single 3V lithium coin cell |
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| M1 Active | Soundhole/magnetic | 1000+ hours, single 3V lithium coin cell |
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Under-saddle Pickup
An advanced pickup using film sensors
Going beyond your typical under-saddle pickup, LR Baggs’s Element pickups are built to mirror your guitar’s soundboard. An extremely thin film sensor picks up every nuance of your playing and delivers it as high-fidelity sound to your amp or mixer. This system suppresses the annoying “quack” associated with under-saddle pickups. The Element Active System also gives you an active, Class A end-pin-mounted preamp with plug-and-play convenience, so you never have to fumble around for the on/off switch — just plug in, and it turns on. The removable volume control mounts just inside the soundhole for easy access.
Under-saddle Pickup Features:
- All-discrete Class A end-pin preamp delivers pristine sound
- Tracks your soundboard’s movement instead of string pressure
- Soundhole remote with volume control
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Element | Under-saddle | 1000 hours, single 9V |
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| Five.O | Under-saddle | 300+ hours, single 3V lithium coin cell |
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Bridge-plate Pickup
Capture your guitar’s sound direct from the soundboard
The LR Baggs iBeam Active System lets you add an award-winning bridge-plate transducer with a built-in Class A FET-based preamplifier to your acoustic guitar. This unique design uses a pair of film sensors that flex with the soundboard to reproduce your guitar’s sound much like diaphragms in a stereo mic. The transducer mounts directly underneath the bridge plate of your instrument and captures every detail and nuance of your playing. The preamp runs on a single 9-volt battery, and you get about 1,000 playing hours out of a single battery. When properly installed, the LR Baggs iBeam Active System brings out the natural tone of your acoustic guitar while maintaining perfect string balance and providing full dynamic range.
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| iBeam | Bridge-plate Pickup | 1000 hours, single 9V |
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Contact Pickup
Get real acoustic tone with this contact mic
Get authentic mandolin sound when you’re onstage! The Radius-M mandolin pickup was specifically designed to make your mandolin sound just as gorgeous amplified as it sounds when you play it acoustically. Designed by expert pickup makers LR Baggs, the Radius-M features a high-tech contact sensor that you can install in just minutes. The pickup actually emulates the natural sound of a microphone, yet without all the common problems associated with instrument mics. As you strum, you’ll enjoy feedback-free sound, with all the detail and fullness you expect from your instrument.
| Product | Pickup Type | Battery | Key Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radius-M | Contact pickup | Passive |
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Preamps
Once you find the perfect pickup and sound for your acoustic guitar, you need to find a preamp. Preamps take care of everything from ensuring proper volume and gain levels to EQ to acting as a DI. Check out our selection of LR Baggs preamps to see which one best fits your needs.
Venue DI
The compact Venue DI pedal solves the big problems all acoustic guitarists face, and at great value too. Just plug your acoustic guitar into the Venue DI, and it’ll get your signal ready to be plugged into the mixer, preserving the natural sound of your guitar for the whole audience to hear. More than that, you can use the onboard 4-band EQ with presence control to tune your sound so that it fits in nicely with the other musicians onstage. A built-in Garret Null notch filter and phase inversion switch helps you kill annoying feedback. You’ll also love the built-in tuner for quick tune-ups in between songs.
- 3-in-1 system for performing acoustic guitarists
- Features adjustable gain for both passive and active pickups
- Onboard tuner features a footswitch mute/tune function
- 4-band EQ with tunable low-mid and high-mid bands for shaping your sound
- Phase inversion for best sound and feedback control
- Adjustable volume boost footswitch gives you “oomph” when you need it
- XLR and 1/4″ outputs for convenience
- Works with 9-volt battery or an optional adapter
Para Acoustic DI
For over a decade and a half, the Para DI has been one of the mainstays of the live music world. Its discrete, Class A FET input provides a crystal-clear internal sound path, and an adjustable gain parameter makes matching the levels of active or passive electronics easy. Its equalizer offers +/-12dB of correction with high- and low-mid frequency notches and an adjustable low-cut filter. On the way out, you can choose from balanced XLR and 1/4″ outputs. It’s built road tough and is versatile enough to run off of +48-volt phantom power and for 200+ hours on a single 9-volt battery.
- All-discrete Class A circuitry for transparent acoustic sound
- Adjustable gain for both passive and active pickups
- 5-band EQ with tunable notch and midrange bands
- Dedicated DI output
- Phase inversion for best sound and feedback control
- XLR and 1/4″ outputs for feeding mixers or amplifiers
- 200+ hours of playtime on a single 9-volt battery
Gigpro
The LR Baggs Gigpro is a 1-channel belt-clip preamp that will work with most pickups. It provides nine volts of phantom power for mini-mics and other phantom-powered onboard electronics. Based on the Para DI’s award-winning circuitry, it has been pared down to the essential features; nevertheless, it has everything necessary to get the best possible sound from your pickup.
- All-discrete Class A circuitry for sweet, transparent sound
- Entirely passive EQ circuitry adds no distortion to maintain transparency
- Adjustable input gain allows the best performance and lowest noise with a variety of pickups
- Lightweight, compact, and belt-clip ready — ideal for wireless situations
- Controls include treble and bass, phase inversion, gain, and a low-cut trim control, adjustable from 27Hz to 200Hz
- Super-quiet -90dB signal-to-noise ratio
- 300+ hours of playtime on a single 9V battery
